I had an old in vehicle GPS system
that needed to be retired and at this point my phone is a better GPS receiver
any way. I decided to design and print
an enclosure for it that could use my old GPS mount to secure it to the
windshield.
The design
goals for the enclosure include:
- It holds the phone securely and rattle free while still allowing the phone to be removed easily.
- It should not cause an unnecessary obstruction of the view of the road or the screen on the phone.
- It should be mostly 3D printable while any printed parts should be easy to fabricate or buy locally.
- It should use as little materials as possible without sacrificing strength, durability, or other previously mentioned criteria.
- It must interface with my existing
mount for my GPS.
I took
careful measurements of my phone’s exterior dimensions, screen dimensions, and
USB port location using standard digital calipers and used those dimensions to
create an enclosure for it in Pro/Engineer.
The end result is an enclosure that holds the phone securely but still
slides in and out easily without difficulty.
I had considered adding some sort of latching system to secure the phone
in the enclosure but instead chose to simply use a USB cable to prevent the
phone from sliding out since the phone will always be hooked up to a charger when
using it for navigation. Removing the
cable allows the phone to slide out the right side of the enclosure.
The
design had to be printed in two parts and glued together due to the limitations
of the 3D printing process. I included holes in the 4 corners of both pieces into
which stainless steel pins were inserted to both locate the two pieces and
provide added shear strength to the joint. These pins were the only non-printed
parts.
